Josh Duggar admits cheating on wife after Ashley Madison hack

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former reality TV star Josh Duggar on Thursday admitted cheating on his wife after reports that he had subscribed to the Ashley Madison affair website, apologizing for being "the biggest hypocrite ever."

"While espousing faith and family values, I have been unfaithful to my wife," Duggar, 27, a former campaigner for family values who appeared on the TLC show "19 Kids and Counting," said in a statement posted on his family's website.

"The last few years, while publicly stating I was fighting against immorality in our country I was hiding my own personal failures," he added, calling himself the "biggest hypocrite ever."

The Discovery Communications-owned network last month canceled "19 Kids," after disclosures in May that Duggar had sexually abused four of his sisters when he was a teenager, one of whom was under 10 years old at the time.

Duggar apologized in a statement, saying he "acted inexcusably," and resigned from his job at Christian lobbying group Family Research Council.

In an earlier version of Duggar's statement posted on the family's website and reported by People magazine and Buzzfeed, he said "I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife."

The reference to pornography was removed in an updated version of the statement.

Duggar's parents, conservative Christians Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, said on Thursday they were dismayed over the Ashley Madison reports concerning their son.
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